The Mark of the Man

Favor to request: Let us know when you're linking to Bleacher Report so I can go ahead and not click on it.

Noting at all new there, real followers of college football knew he was dirty 15 years ago. This story is akin to telling us Calipari or Saban have dirty past.

We offered our job to him prior to Grobe...

The article is a compilation of allegations about what Tressel may have known. In the end, the writer somehow establishes that those allegations equal fact.

As a journalism guy, OCF, this should be obvious to you.

Organizations like the Boy Scouts and at churches around the state require adults who will be in contact with youth to undergo periodic "ethics" type training.

With so much to lose why wouldn't O$U's JT have conducted similar with his players?  Something like, this program is bigger than you; we desire your talents but you would just be in a long line of super human beings going back to ? to Archie to ?, you will run into much temptation during your stay at tO$U and you must fight hard to not give in to it because we all have so much to lose.  Any action even so trivial such as giving tickets away for a favor is against the NCAA rules and can bring down this storied program and perhaps wreck your future.  And on an on he could have gone until he said look, I want you to think before you do something of importance.  I want you to think after doing it will you be proud of it, will your parents be proud of it and will your teammates and hundreds of thousands of O$U alums and supporters be proud of it and if after doing that you can say yes to all then go ahead and do it and I'll support you to my dying breath.

If that was the culture of tO$U, repeated 2-3 times per year,  there certainly may have been a rule breaker here or there but you wouldn't see a trail 10 years long and five doing something at the same time and a coach learning of the infraction planning to hide the offenses. It is obvious that JT didn't ask those questions of himself when he was tipped off to violations.  JT had time to think after the tip,  this didn't need to be a snap decision--he had lots of time to play what ifs and "gameplan" and chose a very lousy path for his players, his institution, his family and himself.  Now tO$U is the talk of the country, but not like they talk about National Champions! 

The only new thing here is that Tressel is subject to further investigation by the NCAA. 
If he and A&M have severed ties completely, isn't he, like Pryor, free to ignore Indianapolis? 
But if he is cooperating voluntarily, you better believe that A&M has a heavily vested financial interest in what he has to say. They have a lot more to lose at this point than he does.  Can you say "BUYOUT?

Anybody know why the NCAA can reach Tressel now?

Nah, early 90's we had Ray in town with the Honda dealership.

No problem with trashing the Bleacher Report, but if you read the article every piece of information is public knowledge and/or attributed to another, more reputable source (ESPN, Time, etc.) - so consider it a portal to the overall story.

You say Buyout...I say Payoff (for taking the bullet that should have been shared by Archie & Smith)

Tomato - Toma'to

Strictly speaking, you're right RF; this is not a straight news story.  It repeats some known facts.  It adds a few tidbits here and there, and engages in a great deal of educated speculation.  My conclusion is that where there's this much smoke, there's got to be some fire.  In a court of law you can convict with enough circumstantial evidence in the absence of any hard evidence.  Don't know if this holds true for the NCAA, though.  The case against O$U at this juncture has some hard evidence particularly in the Tattoo-gate portion.  There appears to be hard evidence emerging in car-gate, also, in terms of the tax evasion aspec and in some other areas.  It seems to me this article paints a pretty convincing picture that JT has been turning a blind eye to the corruption around him for a very long time.  It is a circumstantial case, but it appears to me to be compelling.   It'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out.  

The article claims Clarett hangs the coach out to dry. However in my local paper--just today--there's an AP article quoting Clarett defending the coach. As I see it, the Bleacher Report article is not much more than a straight opinion piece.

Hold the phone, I just received information from a source who has personal knowledge of this situation.  He says that while JT was a candidate for the job when Grobe was hired (and earlier when PapaL was hired) he was never offered the job either time.  So, if he said he declined an offer, it was just another one of his lies.